


the shadow of azanulbizar

by Saraste



Series: scars of azanulbizar [2]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Braids, Cuddling, Ered Luin, F/F, Family, Kid-fic, Nightmares, Post-Battle of Azanulbizar, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rule 63, fem!nwalin, nwalin - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-01-27
Packaged: 2018-09-20 06:34:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9479561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saraste/pseuds/Saraste
Summary: In the wake of Azanulbizar, Dwalin has nightmares. Being reminded of what she came home to helps.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was written because [ katajainen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/katajainen/pseuds/katajainen) sked for 'domestic fluff' in the verse [a new braid or two](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9472598) is set in... instead of fluff she got this hurt/comfort piece with cuddling. Which kinda got away from me.
> 
> I'll try and write the domestic fluff sometime. And I wanna write Nori meeting their pebble for the first time.

The long shadow of Azanulbizar manifests in nightmares, shifting and changing, not all even based on actual events. 

 

Dwalin is trapped under a pile of bodies, both friend and foe alike, pinned and helpless and she cannot escape the killing blow, a huge orc grinning down at her, she’ll never get to go home to Nori.  Nori, her mischievous lovemate is held aloft, feet dangling above the ground, grasped by her fall of russet hair, a knife to her throat, Dwalin made to watch as her life’s blood spills quicker than Dwalin can run through a wall of foes. Balin falls, a spear through her back… 

 

That Dwalin’s pressing Nori to the mattress more often than not when she wakes… 

 

Well, there is a reason for Dwalin not keeping her weapons in their bedroom, even though her big hands are weapons enough on their own, no forged bladed needed. 

 

Nori’s hands are on her forearms now, and she’s shifting under Dwalin to press their foreheads together, murmuring soothing nonsense at her, gripping her marks in Dwalin’s hair, holding onto the braids she has braided in there. It takes no more than that to bring Dwalin back from the shadow’s of ‘never happened’, fuelled by all the things that  _ had _ happened. 

 

Dwalin takes deep breaths, makes herself focus on Nori, the room around them,  _ their home _ . She’s come back home. She made it. Survived. 

 

‘You’re  _ home _ ,’ are the first words Dwalin can focus on. Her arms are holding her up above Nori’s slight frame, Nori’s fingers in her hair are a gentle caress, not a tug to wrench her back to the here and now. A lamp burning in an alcove in the wall casts strange shadows across Nori’s face, makes her hair shine like fall-leaves, like precious rubies once mined from the depths of Erebor. Nori’s teeth flash in the gloom, wide in a mile. ‘You’re here with  _ us _ . You came back.’

 

Dwalin ducks down to kiss Nori, then. Can’t  _ not _ kiss her. Nori is pliant under her, as Dwalin is too brittle to be challenged, however much she might like it when Nori does just that. This is no time or place for pillow-games. It’s about Dwalin carrying deep scars which might fade in time but never fully heal. Scars might may lead to her hurting Nori if the worst comes to worst.

 

Nori sighs into the kiss, her hands gentle and reassuring where they touch Dwalin.

 

To press her forehead to Nori’s is an act of far greater intimacy than any kiss can be, especially with how Nori’s fingers stroke idly at the braids binding her to Nori, declaring that Dwalin is Nori’s and no-one else’s. That their family, kin in soul if not blood, bound together for the rest of their days.

 

Dwalin lets herself be pushed onto her back. She watches as Nori rolls out of their bed and pads over the floor on light feet, footfalls muffled by the carpet on the floor. Dwalin waits. There’s a sleepy snuffle when Nori bends to pick up the pebble from the little bed by the far wall, soothed by a reassuring mumble. Nori turns, a bundle in her arms. Dwalin shifts up to lean against the wall behind her back. 

 

Yes.

 

Dwalin came home.

 

Not only to Nori but to tomorrow’s she had not expected, to a pebble clinging to Nori’s russet hair and fitting on her hip so perfectly it aches, so perfectly that it  _ fits _ , like the twin braids in unruly dwarfling hair, declarations of kinship, of love.

 

Nori clambers back onto the bed, her short shift riding up on her thigh as she hefts the pebble in her arms, shifting them on her hip. Dwalin’s arms hold out in wordless plea and soon bear the comforting weight of life in them. She touches her forehead to a smaller one, breathing deep.

 

‘Better?’ Nori asks. She’s settling herself against Dwalin’s side, getting comfortable, pulling at the blankets to cover their feet.

 

They both know Dwalin will not sleep more on this night. She never does, not when she wakes up like that, hands almost making her nightmares a reality. 

 

Dwalin’s voice is soft when she speaks, comfort leeching into her from the weight in her arms, and the warm press of Nori’s body against her side. ‘Better.’

 

And she is. All the better for this. The pebble in her arms, Nori’s solid support.

 

‘Do you want to talk about it?’ Nori asks, as she always does. 

 

Dwalin’s muscles tighten. She does not want to put her horror into words, lest it lure the nightmares into her waking hours. She answers as she always does. ‘No.’ But not harshly, her tone simply resigned. Weary. Tired. She knows it might be better if she talked about it but… it feels wrong. She will never talk of her deepest horrors where their pebble can hear. Nori could bear it, bear knowing, but Azanulbizar has already robbed their pebble of so much.

 

Nori presses tighter against her shoulder, snuggling closer. ‘Do you  _ want _ to talk?’

 

Dwalin considers. Listens to the soft snuffling of their sleeping pebble, so fearlessly slumbering in her arms, the arms of a warrior, a killer, a familiar weight against her body. Dwalin is tired but knows she shouldn’t sleep. Can’t risk it. There is a reason that their pebble does not share their bed. It’s a good reason. She is warm and safe and it would be so easy to simply close her eyes and sleep, safe with her wife and their dwarfling. But  _ Dwalin _ isn’t safe. So she cannot sleep.

 

‘Tell me a story?’ she asks.

 

Nori hums, tapping her fingers against Dwalin’s arm. Her slight curves pressed against Dwalin’s side are a comfort, she’s filling up a little, where she once was all angles, accentuated by a cutting tongue. Not that Nori is soft now, though her words have lost most of their edges, become smoother for Dwalin’s sake, for the sake of the pebble who has already lost so much, who needs only their love and kindness.

 

‘Have I told you of the first time I met this little rascal?’

 

‘You have,’ Dwalin says. ‘Tell me again.’ 

 

She likes that story. A story about how a wee dwarfling, more pebble than not, met Nori and ran away with her heart on unsteady little feet just learning to walk. 

 

Nori chuckles. ‘Well. There I was, minding my own business, running errands for my dear old Mum…’

 

Dwalin falls asleep to the familiar words of the story, despite her efforts to stay awake, be on her guard. She wakes to sunlight streaming in from their little window, to Nori looking down at her with loving eyes. Dwalin takes a deep breath, hands grasping around the pebble in her arms. She shakes.

 

‘It’s fine, nothing happened,’ Nori assures her, laying a calming hand onto Dwalin’s scarred knuckles, stroking until they are not grasping at the blanket tight enough to turn white. ‘You slept peacefully.’

 

‘How can you know?’

 

Nori gives her one of those big bright smiles of hers. She looks to have been sitting cross-legged on the bed, watching Dwalin sleep, combing her hair, which is loose save but for the braids in it.  _ Dwalin’s braids _ . ‘I watched over you,’ she says, ‘nothing calms you like our wee pebble here.’ She bends to kiss the mop of untameable dark hair peeking from beneath the blanket. Their pebble is a burrower, nothing else of them visible from the bundle in Dwalin’s arms.

 

‘Good,’ Dwalin says. She likes to hope that she has begun healing now. She has more than enough reasons to, in any case.

 

She will not let Azanulbizar ruin her tomorrows.


End file.
